


The Hard Hearted

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Characters Being Dysfunctional, F/F, Gen, Screaming in the Snow, also there is some widobrave angst here if u squint, i don't believe in Rules and Dates, im probably going to change the title if i regain my motivation to post regularly, jester/beau is mentioned and it's part of the whole Thing, look the first bit is kinda Yikes but I swear there's legitimate romance here, veth shows off her alchemy and cultivation knowledge, yasha and beau both have Issues they working through them aight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29694498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Beau is leaving the tower at night.(Set in a hazy period after e118, canon divergent)
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Veth Brenatto & Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	The Hard Hearted

Beau was leaving the tower at night.

  
Veth knew this because she, herself, had taken to sleeping in hidden alcoves on the lower levels, away from the (beautiful, thoughtful) room put together for her. She wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it, exactly. It’s only that she didn’t trust the cats not to rat on her to Caleb, and she didn’t want him to think the room wasn’t perfect, because it was. It was.

  
In any case, her current sleeping arrangement made it hard not to be aware of the others' comings and goings. Yasha also left the tower, but infrequently. The others generally stayed indoors. Fjord or Jester would sometimes get it into their heads to rifle through the library, sometimes alone, sometimes together, and Caduceus either stayed in his rooms or tried breaking into the kitchens. Ordinarily Beau would only visit the rec room, if anywhere. Yet the past three nights in a row Beau disappeared from the tower in the dead of night for hours at a time, returning each time covered in snow and looking sour.

  
Veth couldn’t complain about it—she had no leg to stand on—but Beau never seemed to wear enough layers and she wasn’t as sneaky as Veth, so, someone should probably keep an eye on her.

  
On the fourth night, she slipped out the door a minute after Beau.

  
The tracks were easy enough to follow, and it didn’t take long to spot the dark shape they were heading towards. Even in the dark, the snow reflected starlight to a degree that Veth could imagine her vision was still as good as it used to be. It was brutally cold, which might be why Beau huddled over herself. Her arms were shaking a little.

  
Veth considered the possibility that Beau was crying—a dangerous activity, since tears were likely to freeze your eyeballs out in this weather. She wasn’t sure Beau was built for crying, though it couldn’t hurt to be safe. She raised a tangle of wire to her lips.

  
“Are you wearing your goggles? Are you dying? You can reply to this message.”

  
The dark shape that was Beau jerked up, the goggles flashing on the reflected light of the snow. “Fuck you, Veth, you snuck up on me.”

  
In lieu of a reply, Veth loaded a bolt and shot it in Beau’s direction. Predictably, it was snatched out of the air.

  
“ _Fuck_ you Veth!” Beau said, shouting now that the spell couldn’t carry her words. “I know that was you!”

  
“Oh no! We’re under attack! Don’t reply to this message.” She ducked and rolled. It was good terrain for a tussle like this. The snow was high enough that Veth would ordinarily need to barrel through it, except that the ring of water walking seemed to have taken mercy on her for this trip. She didn’t even leave tracks, and running around was less trouble for her than the others. There was an abundance of twisted pillar-like shapes to duck behind, regularly spaced and more than wide enough to shield her. Even if Beau was fast as hell and could see better of the two of them, Veth could hide twice as well. The snow was too powdery for packing, so she kept on with the crossbow and made sure to aim just a little wide—she was more than good enough to just nick Beau if she couldn’t dodge or snatch the bolt. Veth was feeling pretty smug, really, until her crossbow backfired in her face and a massive, toothy creature chose just then to be irritated by their running around.

  
A few minutes later they collapsed together in a snow drift, said toothy creature itself collapsed a few meters away, slowly bleeding out into the snow. Veth was almost unscathed, but Beau was bleeding from more than just claws and teeth, and seemed ready to be angry about it.

  
“What did I tell you? Under attack,” Veth said, unrepentant. “Good thing I came along—I saved your life!”

  
“Weren’t you the one shooting at me?”

  
“Think about it this way—if someone other than me ambushed you, you might be dead. I saved your life twice!”

  
“Right.” Beau groaned and got to her feet, shaking the snow out as best she could. It really was horribly cold. Veth was half-afraid the sweat from running around would freeze on her skin and scrambled up as well. “Look, I know it might not be the best idea to walk around alone—”

  
“Sure, it’s not like we’re on a death-continent or anything—”

  
“It’s just we’re always moving during the day and there’s never time to—look around. Okay?”

  
“What are you looking for?” Veth asked. “You don’t see enough snow in the daytime?”

  
Beau scoffed, and looked away. “Flowers, all right? I’m looking for flowers.”

  
Veth looked around—snow piled to various heights in every direction—and raised her eyebrows.

  
“Some of them grow in snow! Like crocuses, or—hells-a-bore, hall-eh-bore—”

  
“Hellebore,” Veth said, without thinking. At Beau’s look, “They’re supposed to cure madness, but they just give you the shits. And heart trouble. Anyway, you’re not going to find them around here. Not growing wild.”

  
“Why not?”

  
“We’re outside their range. And—I’m pretty sure this used to be an orchard. It’s stupid to cultivate flower gardens in the middle of orchards. Look, I was hiding behind these.” She brushed some snow off of one of the squat pillar-like objects. “Something happened to petrify these before the snow—that’s why they haven’t rotted away—but there? That line? Grafting.”

  
Beau put a hand against it, then jerked it away. “It feels like metal.”

  
Veth was going to say well, we’ve all seen wood turned into metal before, but it seemed to hit them both at the same time, what that meant. “Think Caleb will ever be able to do something like this?” Beau said weakly. Veth nodded, because of course. He wouldn’t, but he’d be able to, one of these days.

  
In a way, Eiselcross was worse than the Barbed Fields. When gods left scars on the land, somehow it wasn’t as frightening as when people did it.

  
“I guess I was just wasting my time then,” Beau said, shoving her hands in her pockets. “The ground is probably metal too, under the snow.”

“The flowers.” Veth rolled the words around in her mouth, testing them. “They’re for Yasha?”

  
“You have to ask?”

  
“Could be for Jester.”

  
“Don’t be stupid.”

  
“You told me before—”

  
“I was drunk, okay?” Beau pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, sorry. I’m not stupid either. I know she and Fjord are, together now. So do you.”

  
“It might not last. You know, maybe they thought they were good for each other, but she’s a different person now from the person she was when she first loved him, and she might get to feel like something’s missing. You could sweep her off her feet.”

  
“Oh, so that’s why you never call Yeza anymore?”

  
The wind was picking up, hollering through the trees. Veth pulled her coat closer. “That was mean.” She hated it as she said it, because she recognized those words, that tone. Felderwin. _You’re mean, you’re mean,_ how pathetic. That’s something you say when you’re too weak to do anything about it.

  
“You wouldn’t even know I left if you were sleeping in your room. You know what I think? I think you don’t like being reminded—”

  
“Shut up!” She clapped her hands over her mouth, then dropped them. She didn’t need to feel guilty. “Shut up. I can visit them whenever I want. Jester or Caduceus or Caleb would take me to Nicodranas tomorrow morning if I asked, and as soon as this is over, I’m _going_ , I _said_ that—”

  
“I **KNOW**!” Beau shouted. “…I know. I know you’re going to your family. And Caduceus is going to his family, and Caleb’s probably going to Rexxentrum to deal with all that shit and his exes or whatever and he’ll leave, and Jester and Fjord will hang out at the Lavish Chateau or get a boat and sail around somewhere and—maybe I’m tired of being the odd one out.”

  
“You’re not—”

  
“Everyone in that tower cares about someone else more than me,” Beau said. “Gods, I sound stupid. I don’t care.”

  
“So, you’re just afraid of being alone?” She tried to sound scornful, but it didn’t seem to come out right.

  
“So what?”

  
“I just think, you can’t base love on only desperation—”

  
“I **do** love Yasha,” Beau said hotly. “If you bothered to fucking ask. And there’s a chance she might love me. What the hell do you know?”

  
Beau drove her hip purposefully into Veth’s side as she stalked past, nearly knocking her over. 

  
“Beau—”

  
“Deal with your own problems, I don’t need your nose in mine.” Beau glanced back a second, her smile acid. “Hope you sleep well.”

  
The wind grew stronger still, screaming in Veth’s ears. Her throat was raw from breathing in the cold.

  
If she replied, neither of them heard it.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah.... these two are hurting....
> 
> I, you know, I felt like I missed out on a scene where they really hashed this out, and I like the angst, so. This. *hides under table*
> 
> I uhhhhh I wrote other scenes and ideas for this story that are way sweeter....


End file.
